JUST DESERTS

Al DeLassus loses both a bid to become secretary-treasurer of Local 655 of the United Food and Commercial Workers and his shop-steward job

Al DeLassus, buried last week in his bid to become secretary-treasurer of Local 655 of the United Food and Commercial Workers, suffered another indignity the day after the votes were tabulated. A union member since 1967, DeLassus reports that two Local 655 business agents visited the Schnucks where he works as a grocery clerk and took his official "shop steward" button. He lost the shop-steward job, DeLassus says he was was told, because he had misrepresented the union in his campaign literature. It was DeLassus who last month raised a stink about labor publisher Ed Finkelstein's moonlighting as a PR flack for Olivette's proposed Wal-Mart-anchored shopping center (RFT, Sept. 1). So has Al learned anything from his hell-raising? "Well, I'll tell you what happened  they really have gotten me mad," DeLassus says.